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Ancient Russian Warship Crossing The Panama Canal
Russia is once again pretending to scare the U.S. by sailing one of its broken down cold war relics or “warship” as they call it across the Panama Canal.
A Russian warship will sail through the Panama Canal this week for the first time since World War II, the navy announced Wednesday, pushing ahead with a symbolic projection of Moscow’s power in a traditional U.S. zone of influence.
The destroyer Admiral Chabanenko will arrive Friday at a former U.S. naval base in Panama’s Pacific port of Balboa for a six-day visit after carrying out joint maneuvers with the Venezuelan navy in the Caribbean Sea, navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said in a telephone interview.
The Panama Canal has long been a symbol of U.S. clout in Latin America, and Dygalo said no Soviet or Russian military ship has sailed through it since World War II. The wartime alliance between the U.S. and the Soviet Union swiftly gave way to the mistrust, military buildups and proxy conflicts of the Cold War.
In a throwback to those times, the Russian navy statement announcing the plans referred to the base the Admiral Chabanenko will visit as Rodman naval base—its name when it was a U.S. base many years ago.
The fact that Putin really believes the U.S. is going to feel threatened by Russia’s laughable, broke down navy shows how out of touch he really is. The only thing that makes Russia a military player in the world at all is its nuclear arsenal. Beyond that, Russia’s military is a joke. The once mighty navy of the Soviet Union has been reduced to nothing in modern day Russia.
The same thing goes for Russia’s flyovers. Russia thinks they’re scaring us by flying their old cold war bombers into Alaskan territory and elsewhere. Those bombers belong in a damn museum not buzzing the U.S.
Putin’s Opponent Barred From Upcoming Presidential Election
From Washington Post:
Former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, a political opponent of President Vladimir Putin, was barred Sunday from running for president after the Central Election Commission said it had found tens of thousands of forged signatures among the 2 million gathered by his campaign to get his name on the ballot.
Opinion polls indicated that Kasyanov posed no political threat to Putin’s chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, the overwhelming favorite in the March 2 vote, and his disqualification will immediately raise questions about the Kremlin’s willingness to face any competition or debate. As a candidate, Kasyanov would have enjoyed some access to state-controlled national television stations, which rarely mention him and then only to attack him as corrupt or declare him irrelevant.
Kasyanov alleged that the commission’s decision was “made personally by Vladimir Putin,” who fired him in 2004.
During Stalin’s reign if you did something the Kremlin didn’t like you would have immediately been arrested and sent to the gulags and likely killed.
In the Russia of 2008 it’s a different kind of tyranny. Putin uses the legal system to bring down opponents through a Kangaroo court system and completely fictitious cases.
-Chris Jones
Putin Continues to Chip Away At Democracy
Left-wing critics of the Bush Administration love to howl about how the President is rolling back our freedoms and trying to create a “fascist” government.
People who are even remotely connected with reality know that’s complete nonsense. However, what’s happening in Putin’s Russia is very real.
Vladimir Putin actually is rolling back freedoms. The Kremlin has near complete control over who can run for office in Russia. The next President of Russia when Putin steps down will be someone he chooses as his replacement. There are opposition candidates running, but it’s really not possible for them to actually win.
Opposition candidates also run the very real risk of being killed by the FSB formerly known as the KGB, as do journalists, businessmen, or anyone else that offends the Putin.
The NY Times is reporting today that Putin’s latest anti-democratic power grab involves clamping down on election observers.
The Kremlin aims to curtail the activities of election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe — just in time for Russia’s December parliamentary elections and March presidential election.
President Vladimir Putin is not trying to bar the observers altogether; that would be too obvious. What he wants is to cut the size of the monitoring missions and stop them from immediately releasing their reports, thus diminishing their impact.
What President Putin is doing is what rolling back Democracy actually looks like, not anything President Bush is doing. As long as liberals can go on TV and call the President a liar and a war criminal and not end up dead, then I think America is still pretty damn free.
-Chris Jones
Putin Visits Iran, Threatens U.S.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin met his Iranian counterpart Tuesday and implicitly warned the U.S. not to use a former Soviet republic to stage an attack on Iran. He also said nations shouldn’t pursue oil pipeline projects in the area if they weren’t backed by regional powers.
Putin, whose trip to Tehran is the first by a Kremlin leader since World War II, warned that energy pipeline projects crossing the Caspian could only be implemented if all five nations that border the Caspian support them.
Putin did not name any specific country, but his statement underlined Moscow’s strong opposition to U.S.-backed efforts to build pipelines to deliver hydrocarbons to the West bypassing Russia.
The legal status of the Caspian – believed to contain the world’s third-largest energy reserves – has been in limbo since the 1991 Soviet collapse, leading to tension and conflicting claims to seabed oil deposits.
Iran, which shared the Caspian’s resources equally with the Soviet Union, insists that each coastal nation receive an equal portion of the seabed. Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan want the division based on the length of each nation’s shoreline, which would give Iran a smaller share.
Putin: No Proof Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons
President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday there is no proof Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons, but emphasized that Tehran must be encouraged to make its nuclear program fully transparent.
Russia has opposed the U.S.-push for tougher sanctions against Iran and called for more checks and inspections of Iranian facilities by International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
”We have worked cooperatively with our partners at the United Nations Security Council, and we intend to continue such cooperative work in the future,” Putin said.
But he said that with no ”objective data” showing Iran is developing nuclear weapons, ”we proceed from an assumption that Iran has no such plans.”
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